NPP leaders push status action in DC
Caribbean Business
November 6, 2013
New Progressive Party leaders are marking the anniversary of the election-day status plebiscite with columns aimed at spurring action on the issue in Washington.
Resident Commissioner Pedro Pierluisi and NPP Rep. José Aponte have penned op-ed pieces published in leading congressional news outlets this week as Puerto Rico’s century-old status question remains on the back burner on Capitol Hill.
Pierluisi, the president of the statehood NPP and the island’s lone representative in Congress, made case in a column published by Roll Coll under the headline “Puerto Rico’s Political Status Needs to Change With the Times.”
“Inertia is a powerful force, but it’s not nearly as powerful as an idea whose time has come. Much works remains to be done, but much progress has been made in the past 12 months,” Pierluisi said. “Mindful of the axiom that the arc of history is long but it bends towards justice, I am confident that residents of Puerto Rico will soon cease to be second-class citizens of the world’s most democratic nation.”
Pierluisi reiterated the NPP’s position that the local Nov. 6, 2012 plebiscite was a clear rejection of commonwealth and pushed for movement on legislation he filed in May that would make a congressional offer of statehood to Puerto Rico, which voters could reject in a “yes or no” vote.
“Following the November vote, the ball moved into Washington’s court, because a change in a territory’s status can’t occur without action by Congress and the president,” he said.
President Barack Obama’s fiscal 2014 budget seeks $2.5 million to hold the first federally sponsored vote on Puerto Rico’s status. The bill cleared key committees in both chambers of Congress but was sidetracked by the federal budget battle and partial government shutdown this fall. Budget negotiators are now working on a compromise spending package that could include the plebiscite finding.
“Its fate will be known in the coming months,” Pierluisi said.
In the 2012 plebiscite’s two-question vote, 53.97 percent of voters said they were against continuing Puerto Rico’s current commonwealth territory status. A second question had voters choose among “nonterritorial” alternatives to the current status, with 61.13 percent voting for statehood, 33.34 percent voting for Puerto Rico becoming a nation in a free association with the U.S. and 5.49 percent voting for independence. Some 26 percent of ballots cast were left blank to protest that the status quo was left off the second ballot.
Puerto Rico Gov. Alejandro García Padilla maintains that the blank votes dropped support for statehood to just 44 percent. He and his commonwealth Popular Democratic Party argue the ballot was rigged against the current status and that the empty ballots represent a protest against commonwealth’s exclusion from the second question. He had pledged to hold a constituent assembly on the status issue in 2014 if a congressionally binding plebiscite was not held.
The NPP and Puerto Rican Independence Party maintain that the results of the two-step plebiscite represent a clear rejection of the continuation of the current territorial status. Those voting “no” included statehood supporters, as well as advocates of independence and free association.
The White House, meanwhile, has said “the results were clear, the people of Puerto Rico want the issue of status resolved, and a majority chose statehood in the second question.”
“Now is the time for Congress to act and the administration will work with them on that effort so that the people of Puerto Rico can determine their own future,” reads a statement by the White House issued in early December
In August, the U.S. Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee held a hearing on the referendum. Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) and Rep. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), the ranking Republican on the panel concurred that the vote made clear that the majority of Puerto Ricans do not favor the “current territorial status.”
Pierluisi argued in Roll Call that the island’s economic ills are tightly tied to its commonwealth status.
“In the year since the referendum, evidence has continued to mount that Puerto Rico will not achieve its potential as long as it remains a territory. The island’s economic problems are structural and enduring. They can be managed with capable local leadership. But they can only be overcome through a change in status,” Pierluisi said.
The resident commissioner noted that Puerto Rico’s economy has lagged well behind the states for decades.
“A major reason is that, as a territory, Puerto Rico is denied billions of dollars a year from federal programs,” he said.
Pierluisi said the federal funding gap has prompted the island government to borrow heavily on the U.S. municipal bond market, adding that Puerto Rico’s debt is now trading at near junk levels amid an ongoing local recession dating back to 2006.
“Island residents aren’t powerless in the face of these challenges. They vote with their feet, relocating to the states. In the past dozen years, our population has fallen by over 4 percent,” he said.
Meanwhile, Pierluisi’s HR 2000 continues to lag in Congress despite garnering 125 bipartisan cosponsors, which represents more support than 98 percent of bills introduced this session. Efforts to obtain a Senate companion bill are ongoing.
García Padilla and his PDP oppose HR 2000, saying they support the position of President Barack Obama “to assure fair treatment for all” in seeking a status solution.
Puerto Rican Independence Party leader Rubén Berríos has rejected Pierluisi’s bill as “counterproductive” and “doomed to fail.”
No decision has been made on whether the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee, whuich has jurisdiction on Puerto Rico issues, will schedule hearings on HR 2000, but chairman Richard Norman “Doc” Hastings has said “there is strong interest among both Republicans and Democrats in Congress in listening to and considering all local views in determining Puerto Rico’s future.”
A Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report on the costs of statehood is expected to factor into Hastings’ decision, according to CARIBBEAN BUSINESS sources. The report has been delayed.
Read Pierluisi’s full column:http://www.rollcall.com/news/puerto_ricos_political_status_needs_to_change_with_the_times_commentary-228892-1.html?pos=oplyh
HR 2000 is the first bill to formally attempt to win Puerto Rico’s admission as a state of the union in the more than century-long relationship between the U.S. and the island. The measure aims to commit Congress to the results of the future vote that would take place in Puerto Rico.
Voters would be asked, “Do you want Puerto Rico to be admitted as a state of the United States?” and if they support statehood, the bill directs the president to introduce legislation within 180 days of the vote that would “admit Puerto Rico as a state of the union on equal footing with the several states in all respects.”
Aponte, a former speaker of Puerto Rico’s House of Representatives and one of the most island’s most vocal statehood advocates, covered much of the same ground in his op-ed published in The Hill under the headline “Take Puerto Rico from limbo to statehood.”
The minority lawmaker issued a more forceful call for action on HR 2000.
“I know how slow the legislative process can be in Congress. As a former speaker and current member of the Puerto Rico House of Representatives, I have been engaged in the day-to-day operations for more than a decade. Still, there are certain issues that can’t wait and the case of the political status of our island is one of those,” Aponte said.
“Enough is enough. We have played by the rules and now it is time to see concrete action. Congress should and needs to make the issue of Puerto Rico one of its highest priorities during the next few weeks,” the local lawmaker said.
Read Aponte’s full column:http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/politics/189180-take-puerto-rico-from-limbo-to-statehood
Aponte said last November’s plebiscite results require follow up on Capitol Hill.
“This is not an immigration matter; it’s a case of acting on an electoral result. It has been a year since the people spoke,” said Aponte, who has sent letters to all members of Congress stating the results of the 2012 status referendum, along with information regarding HR 2000.
“You have the information, you have the ability to act. It’s time to do it,” he said.
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